Amber Heard’s lawyer objecting to his own question is a magnificent facepalm

John Plunkett. Updated April 26th, 2022

We’ve watched quite a few legal dramas in our time but if we’d seen something like this on The Good Wife, say, we might have thought it a little bit too far fetched.

It’s a moment from Johnny Depp’s $50m defamation trial in Virginia when Amber Heard’s lawyer, Ben Rottenborn, was putting questions to Depp’s house manager, Ben King.

And this happened.

Depp (bottom right) certainly seemed to enjoy it. It might be the most watched thing he’s been in for a while.

And here are just a few of the things people said about it after the clip went viral on Reddit (and everywhere else).

‘I object your honor, this is devastating to my case!’
LetsTalkSh_t

‘You can see them laughing on the right. That’s hilarious.’
WhatevUsayStnCldStvA

‘Even the guy on the stand is like, Huh? Lol.’
SirGauss

‘That little head jolt backwards said it all 😆’
This_iz_fine

And just in case, like this person, you were wondering …

‘Any lawyers here who can tell us whether this lawyer is a clown or not?

‘I’m not looking for off the cuff redditor takes, I’m interested in a professional opinion of this lawyer’s constant hearsay objections.’
lordofbud

‘The legal definition of hearsay is “an out of court statement given to prove the truth of the matter asserted.” You can object to any witnesses’ answer as hearsay, even if you asked the question that brought up the hearsay.

‘Here, I believe he is looking to confirm that this witness has no direct knowledge of what caused the injury. The witness is telling him that the doctor told him “he sustained an injury on one of his fingers,” and then the lawyer objects in the middle of the answer.

‘It’s a bad objection because there’s no dispute that Depp’s finger was injured. It’s not hearsay because no one is using this statement to prove that Depp’s finger was injured.

‘I believe the attorney expected the witness to say that the doctor told him how Depp was injured but got ahead of himself and objected before really realizing what exactly he said. Hence the admonition from the judge.

‘A better way to handle it in my opinion would be to try take control of the witness again and force him to simply answer “yes or no” to the question of whether he had direct knowledge of how Depp’s finger was injured.

‘Regardless of whether it would have been “correct” to object to hearsay here, it certainly builds the impression in the jury that the attorney is grasping and doesn’t know what he’s trying to do. His own kind of bumbling reaction doesn’t help.

‘I haven’t been paying close attention to the trial though so I can’t say whether he’s a clown or not, but this isn’t a great look.’
agtk

Source Reddit u/Chinchillin09